Into Box Office Darkness

Star Trek did a wonderful and horrible thing in 2009...


It made it to the big leagues.


From 1982 to 2002, Trek movies were given very little in the way of money...and respect. Though Paramount could always depend on the films to make X amount of dollars, they knew it was only a niche thing. As art thrives on restriction, however, the best work can be done on the smallest of scale. STAR TREK II wisely reused footage from THE MOTION PICTURE to save on money, but it also focused more on character and emotion. Basically, you cared. The movies continued to get cranked out and, over time, the wallet would slowly open up more and more, but really these were terrible budgets. To give you an idea of how pathetic they were, let's look at the film that was considered by many to kill the franchise, 2002's STAR TREK NEMESIS.


                                     

"Remember: stardates are years."

During the run of the previous regime, you felt that only one failure would lead to feature film death and NEMESIS was definitely the one. With a budget of $60 million, it only pulled $43 million domestic. On its opening weekend, it was beat out by the romantic comedy Maid in Manhattan. MiM had a budget of, get this: $55 million. That's right, Trek movies, which were supposed to be big sci-fi action/adventure movies, were given budgets comparable to romantic comedies. It sorta gives you more respect for what Berman's team was able to accomplish. Several ideas were suggested about why this was the worst money maker, but I think the most logical ones are that: 1) it had been four years since the last film (INSURRECTION) and 2) it was released during a very competitive season. The Two Towers opened the next week, and several other movies, like Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, were still making top ten box office. You could talk about the quality of the film itself, but even bad Trek would always make respectable bank. This was clearly an outlier.

Can your rom-com do this?

STAR TREK's main competition in 2009 was the already dying down X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Terminator Salvation a few weeks later. It was smart positioning. As a result, combined with a great marketing campaign, the movie shot up the charts and made over $250 mil domestic. The Trek phenomena hit the big time. But now, there's no turning back. The sequel was given a crazy $190 million. If you put together the budgets of all four TNG movies, you would get about that much!  Now, of course, the burden to be successful is that much greater.  Simply put, this one HAS to be the biggest Trek ever. Well...it isn't. At least not yet. But this isn't the first time Trek has been to the big show and under-performed...


In 1979, THE MOTION PICTURE was made to capitalize on the new sci fi craze and to compete with Star Wars. It was given a big (at the time) $35 million (some reports say $47 mil) to make Roddenberry's vision come alive on the big screen. And though it did make decent money, it wasn't the hit that paramount was hoping. This is what began the 20 years of budget constraints. A Trek movie wouldn't even get a $35 million budget again until 1994's GENERATIONS!

 

"Imagine what we could have done with $190 million!"

In 2013, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS was finally released after being held back a year for 3D conversion and also so it wouldn't have to compete with The Avengers (which was wise). Even though the film has made good money to this point, it has not met paramount's goals. Will it make it to $300 million? Possibly. (UPDATE: it did!)  So what happened? How come with all the hype and good word of mouth, DARKNESS is under-performing? A couple things come to mind: 1) it's been four years since the previous film came out and 2) it was released during a very competitive season. Wait...didn't I just say that about NEMESIS??? Paramount have you learned nothing? Trek may be more popular then ever, but if you put it up against a billion-dollar-guaranteed Iron Man 3 and a well-advertised and hyped Fast 6, you can't expect it to match 2009's breakout performance. But wait, there's more...

Hopefully this isn't symbolic...

Star Trek's biggest Nemesis is the foreign box office. They always do horrible overseas (comparatively). It's the reason Trek movies will never make a billion dollars. Seriously, what gives? I guess not being exposed to over 700 hrs of Trek on TV makes it harder for one to be a believer. Even with all the bells and whistles, they still can't compete with an iron suit (among other things). This is a franchise with limits...


So what's next? When the dust settles and paramount sees this as a disappointment (but not a failure), how will they proceed? Will they cut back the budgets to what they used to be? Will new writers be hired on to revitalize the movies? Maybe going back to the time and budget constraints will force a new team to focus again more on story and character than big (albeit very good) spectacle.  Also, is having a big budget even worth the pressure? Why are we asking these questions when the movies were JUST rebooted? Because that's life in the big leagues...


Just ask Superman.

Yep.